Inspiration
by Lambdadelta
Summary: Ange has writer's block. Post-EP8, a birthday gift for Small Bombs.


"Writing is hard"—that was the constant thought that slowly but surely had imprinted itself upon Ange's mind over the past few weeks, as she sat for hours upon hours in front of a glowing computer screen each day like a bleary-eyed zombie.

Today, Ange had made about as much progress as she ever did. She'd stared at the screen with her hands folded in front of her face for a good long while, finally struck upon a sudden flash of inspiration, and started typing away like someone possessed, an awkward, excited smile plastered across that face of hers that had looked so troubled and frustrated until that moment. Words and ideas had suddenly sprung up in her mind and flowed freely from her brain to her fingertips, finding their way into the blank document before her without a single one escaping.

Then, as it always happened, she suddenly hit a stopping point, a place she had no idea where to go from. And after giving what she'd written a quick review and coming to the sudden realization that it was complete trash, she accordingly highlighted everything but the first sentence and sent it to the grave among her computer's memory where it belonged.

It had only been weeks since she'd told Okonogi about her resolve to become a writer, but she hadn't anticipated it was going to be this difficult. She had teachings she wanted to pass on and knew exactly what it was she had to say—so how could she have known it would end up being this difficult to make sure those ideas would be properly caught by her web of words, tucked within a carefully crafted tale of her own design? Good ideas were hard to come by, and the few ones that struck her came out clumsily executed on paper.

"Here's your coffee, Lady," a familiar voice suddenly rang out only inches from her ear, causing her to jump in her seat. (The amused chuckle at her startled reaction didn't escape her, either.) After placing Ange's mug down on an empty spot on her desk, Amakusa leaned over her shoulder to take a look at the screen, letting a low whistle escape his lips as his eyes roamed over the single sentence among a sea of white space. "Whoa, you've got a whole sentence going. Looks like you've made more progress than usual today, hyaha!"

"Oh shut up," Ange retorted, though probably more playfully and less sharply than she had intended. Even when he was being a pain the neck, her bodyguard's flippant talk and stupid comments often proved useful in clearing away the cloudy moods that always came with long days spent on yet another failure, as loathe as she was to acknowledge it. "It's harder than it looks. And didn't I tell you not to look at what I'm writing until it's done?"

"Ah, don't be like that," he replied, and the redhead could only roll her eyes at his clear lack of remorse for his actions. "How am I supposed to help if you're all secretive about your work?"

Ange's eyebrows quirked at the remark, forming an expression that was clearly asking if she'd misheard what he just said. "Help? You?"

"Sure, why not?" came the reply with a shrug and a smirk, and before Ange could even protest, an extra chair was being dragged across the hardwood floor to settle right down next to her own.

"You can't write."

"Hey now, Lady, you don't know that," he quipped with a mock look of hurt at her lack of confidence in his abilities. "Besides, as far as experience goes, you haven't got any either. The President sent me out here so I could be useful to you, so I'm not earning my pay if I can't do just that." Slightly pointed teeth flashed in a mischievous grin. "Or would Miss Kotobuki hate that much for her first work to be a joint production?"

Ange sized the man up with a skeptical look, almost like she had been offered a shady deal from some stranger she'd met in a back alley. Then after a few moments, she relented, her sour frown relaxing into a daring smirk. "If you waste too much of my time with stupid ideas, you're stuck on dishes duty for the next month."

"Yeesh. Give me a break," he cringed slightly, but without a trace of that grin disappearing from his face. After cracking his knuckles, he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms in front of his chest and letting his sharp black eyes drift upwards as if deep in thought. "To make a good story, I'd say we should start with a page-turning plot and a real heartthrob of a hero. Okay, how about a story about this _cool_ bodyguard who—"

"Rejected."

And with a new addition to her staff of assistants, Ange's writing sessions finally gained a little life, finding the spark they needed to break free from their never-ending, unproductive monotony—at least for the time being.


End file.
